Video for The Collaborative Research for Online Postgraduate Studies Network (CROPSNet) conference as part of Decentering Through Digitality (DTD) research group.

Decentring through Digitality is an online research group based within Falmouth University’s Centre for Pedagogy Futures in partnership with The Glasgow School of Art.

Decentering through Digitality
CROPSCon 2026

Ten Principles for Teaching Art Online
The Decentring through Digitality Research Group:
Josie Cockram (Falmouth University), Dr Sarah Tripp (Glasgow School of Art), Dr Jo Griffin (Falmouth University), Emma Drye (The Open University), Naomi Garriock (artist educator and archivist of pedagogical materials), Dr Lucy A. Sames (Falmouth University)

CROPSCon 2026
Friday 11 September 2026

This online presentation by a group of artist academics will draw on their collaborative research to propose ten principles for teaching art online. Each of these principles advocates for a distinct vocabulary and methodology; addressing embodiment, the irregular rhythms of collaboration at a distance and extra-linguistic encounters. Some principles will take the form of questions, others of sounds and images. Teaching art online is challenging. 

It could be argued that pedagogical platforms haven’t yet been designed for the needs and predilections of artists, who are very often visual kinaesthetic learners working with materiality, movement, site and the body. Decentring through Digitality is a practice-centred research group that engages with these challenges which is based in Falmouth University’s Centre for Pedagogy Futures and Centre for Blended Realities, and working in partnership with The Glasgow School of Art, members of the group are affiliated with art schools and universities across the UK, including University of the Arts London, Arts University Bournemouth, The Open University and The University of Edinburgh. 

Artists aren’t problem-solvers though - they’re problem-makers. So, in this presentation, the speakers will playfully problematise their experiences teaching artistic practice online to diverse communities of students in the UK and internationally. 

"Consciously orientating toward a diverse repertoire of rhythms [...] helps us to better recognise those paces of our lives (including our interactions with technology) that are rushed, involuntary, or the result of decisions made by somebody else. This is a first, vital step towards recuperating agency and imagining the rhythmic potential of our digital future" - in Carolyn F. Strauss (ed), Slow Technology Reader: A Tool for Shaping Divergent Futures. Amsterdam: Valiz, 2025.